Originally in-line roller skates were developed in the early 1700s in the Netherlands with the intention to simulate ice skating in the summer, by nailing wooden spools to strips of wood and attaching them to the shoe. In 1823 in London a skate was developed under the name of "Rolito" by placing five wheels in a row on the bottom of a shoe. In 1863 James Plimpton in America made a workable roller skate by mounting pairs of wheels side-by-side. These allowed turns and forward and backward skating. The addition of ballbearings to the wheels in 1884 was a further Improvement.
In 1980 an in-line skate was developed by ice hockey players as a cross-training device by combining the skate with a hockey boot, polyurethane wheels, and a rubber heel-brake which skated on land in the same manner as the hockey players skated on ice. This lead to the establishment of Rollerblade, Inc. wherein the name of the company became for years a the popular term for what are today generically referred to as in-line skates.
In-line skates having five wheels, in which the front wheel extends forward of the boot on the skate, permit a greater flexibility in skating with a foot lifted up "on the toes". Shorter wheelbase skates with four wheels are also available. The 4-wheel in-line skates are somewhat slower than the five-wheel skates, but they are easier to master.
The in-line skating accessories of the present invention represent a next generation of in-line skating, because they permit a broader variety of extreme skating with a largely increased capability of various acrobatic movements and greater speed and maneuverability. They provide increased capability of bashing, crossover, backward movements or tricks, stair riding, alley-oops, soul grinds, backside grinds, camels, cess slides, stalls, cross grabs, curb grinds, path slides, fast souls, flips, airs, verts, miszous, slaloming, runouts, swizzles, spins, loops, and various other in-line and extreme in-line skating moves.
In-line skates have a tendency of uneven wheel wear, requiring the replacement or rearrangement of the wheels. Furthermore, all forms of in-line skating essentially requires a maintenance of a substantially upright position except as may be required for shifting the body weight forward, backward or sideways for maintaining proper balance during any acrobatic moves. Braking is accomplished by tilting the foot forward or rearward, depending on the location of a break pad, or sometimes turning the in-line skates sideways, at 90.degree. to the running direction.